A friend of mine was talking about a problem in his house. The faucets outside his house were not hooked up to any pipes inside. He wanted the faucets in order to use a hose to water things on his lawn. If I was in his situation I would probably just carry buckets of water out each time I needed to water something. But he wanted to get a plumber and actually fix the problem.
That’s when I discovered a key difference between ACAs and Non-ACAs. ACoAs are maintainers, while Non-ACoAs are fixers. I can’t tell you how many times I have shirked off the extra work it would take to fix something, to instead maintain. I will either ignore the problem or I will find ways of keeping whatever it is working, but not put the effort in to fix the problem. I would say to myself as long as it continues to work, then I don’t need to fix it. This attitude applies to all aspects of my life. The most obvious and important being how I have maintained my emotional health until I joined Al-Anon.
I knew I was broken, that something wasn’t right in the way I thought of myself. So I found small “patches”. I wrapped tape around the leaking pipe that was my life, and hoped the tape would hold. Sometimes these “patches” would be immersing myself in school, convinced if I did all the work that I would somehow feel accomplished, better. Sometimes it meant I would never turn down a request for help, because helping people makes me feel good and again I thought I could take the gratitude and ease my inner turmoil.
And when these “patches” wouldn’t work, I would seek an escape. I would focus on everything and anything if it didn’t mean I had to be in my head. The big problem though was even if the “fixes” did work they were short-lived. Something would happen and the tape would give way, the leak gradually increasing, my mental stability slipping away.
I would pray desperately for enough strength to make it through. Because that’s all I wanted. To make it through without the dam bursting, without breaking down. I am not proud of the ways I found to prevent the breakdowns, but they worked, and sometimes they were the only thing that did work. I was not content to simply maintain, but I didn’t think I could be fixed. Perpetually broken.
Then I started Al-Anon. For the first time I am finally trying to fix and not maintain. I’m not using escapes as often or using unsavory “patches” to keep myself going. I’m confronting my feelings, not pushing them down. I’m standing up for myself more, and not letting myself get pushed around. No longer am I adding patch after patch. Now, piece by piece I am replacing the old pipe (my old way of thinking) with brand new solid and shiny copper pipe.
